The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 1 eBook

I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left
in England will be selected by my bookseller to add
to this collection. One ("Lines written among
the Euganean Hills".—­Editor.), which I sent
from Italy, was written after a day’s excursion
among those lovely mountains which surround what was
once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of
Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the
insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth
the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by
the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst
of an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak
of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as
my excuse, that they were not erased at the request
of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse
only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would
have had more right than any one to complain, that
she has not been able to extinguish in me the very
power of delineating sadness.

Naples, December 20, 1818.

ROSALIND, HELEN, AND HER CHILD.

SCENE. THE SHORE OF THE LAKE OF COMO.

HELEN:
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
’Tis long since thou and I have met;
And yet methinks it were unkind
Those moments to forget.
Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
5
By this lone lake, in this far land,
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven.
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Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?
And be as thou wert wont to be
Ere we were disunited?
None doth behold us now; the power
That led us forth at this lone hour
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Will be but ill requited
If thou depart in scorn: oh! come,
And talk of our abandoned home.
Remember, this is Italy,
And we are exiles. Talk with me
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Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
Barren and dark although they be,
Were dearer than these chestnut woods:
Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
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Like wrecks of childhood’s sunny dream:
Which that we have abandoned now,
Weighs on the heart like that remorse
Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
No more our youthful intercourse.
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That cannot be! Rosalind, speak.
Speak to me. Leave me not.—­When morn
did come,
When evening fell upon our common home,
When for one hour we parted,—­do not frown:
I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken:
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But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token,
Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
Turn, as ’twere but the memory of me,
And not my scorned self who prayed to thee.